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Moon vs. Mars Debate Heating Up In U.S.

As NASA does its best to spark an off-planet economy in low Earth orbit (LEO) before the International Space Station wears out, a new book published last week argues that a potentially lucrative source of revenue in space lies a little farther out—on the Moon. And it isn’t platinum-family metal ore or helium 3, sometimes mentioned as economic enticements for space mining. It’s water.
In the book, Paul Spudis, a well-known U.S. geologist specializing in lunar science, ...

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Discuss this Article 108

I find it remarkable that, in the 21st century, there are people who still follow the 19th & 20th century adages that 'if it's there, use it.' In the US, we're down to the last few percent of old growth forest, which the woodcutters would gladly make zero percent if given the chance. And now that we've discovered water on the moon, the first thing people think is to use it for rocket fuel. It's oil all over again - a boundless resource that can be pumped out of the ground forever. First off, who decides how that water is to used? And does anyone give a damn about future generations? Or do we just go ahead and mine however much water exists as soon as the necessary infrastructure exists? Personally, I see more value in using and recycling such a valuable resource as opposed to sending it out the tail end of rockets. When the day comes that people are ready to start mining, I would like to think that a long term plan exists - one that covers hundreds of years - on how to best utilize a commodity that Mother Nature dutifully sprinkled across La Luna over the last 4 1/2 B years.

I share some of those concerns. If they are right though, the Moon has hundreds of millions of tons of ice, in easily extractable form, perhaps even a layer two meters thick of ice. If that is right, then you could extract a lot of water without impacting on the amount that is needed on the Moon. It could be a useful stop gap until we start to use other sources of ice in space, or until it just gets really easy to send water into orbit from Earth. Used like that, it would have almost no impact on the total volume of ice.

But - this is based on various assumptions. First that there is that much ice there,and that it is in an easily extractable form. I don't think we know that for sure yet. The orbiting spacecraft observations are inconsistent. Certainly volatiles there, but the question is, where exactly and in what form.

Also, how scientifically interesting is it, and what impact would extracting have on the science value? Not just physically removing it - but - effects of rocket exhausts and other operations on it.

I think there's a decent chance of significant quantities of ice there and easy to extract, but I think the priority right now is to study the Moon and find out what is there. Robotic missions first, lots of them. It's a bit bizarre that we haven't sent a single rover back to the Moon since the 1970s except for the Chinese craft in 2013. That will begin to change next year with the lunar X prize candidate launches. Perhaps if they succeed and produce new photos from the lunar surface then it may also encourage the other space powers into some action? We know so little about the Moon, so much so that it's not long ago that we first realized that there could be volatiles there, and also not so long ago that we first discovered caves on the Moon.

I'm also very much in favour of Moon first. But would say we have to use open ended exploration and be ready to change our plans easily depending on what we find there. Perhaps volatiles will be the big thing on the Moon or it might be something we don't even know about. The volatiles incidentally also include NH3 and CO2 so are sources of nitrogen and carbon dioxide as well, though again, we don't know how much of those either, or in what form.

An expanded exploration concept would be best. Let those without courage, morals or ambition remain here on the earth's surface. The best of us will go forth to face the challenges out there. First, the moon. If we don't get our act together and start colonizing our nearest neighbor in space, the Chinese will, and we will need to get their permission to land there and then pay them rent. Simultaneously, we need to go a bit further out and start exploiting the NEO's. The most expensive thing about space exploration is getting stuff from earth's surface up into orbit. NEO's are stuff, already conveniently out there and not too far away to be rounded up and mined/used/exploited. NEO's carry none of the baggage earth resources carry, like indigenous human populations or fragile ecosystems. In addition, those silly things are actual threats to our continued existence should they choose to have too close an encounter here. Which causes me to wonder how we will handle the shock when we find the well preserved remains of now extinct earth species on those bodies, ancient explorers somehow left behind. Anyway, once we are happily involved in mining and extracting mineral and water resources from the moon and NEO's, further and deeper space ops become almost trivially easy. It's just a matter of a little more time to get where we want to go. And where we want to go should have no limits. The reality is that there are no powerful alien voices of limitation saying things like in 2001 Space Odyssey. The only voices of limitation are the scared and unworthy dimwits of our own species.

Sleepvark, I started to read your comment with enthusiasm - until I read 'If we don't get our act together . . . the Chinese will . . . '.
Surely in the future of space exploration, we should at least try to take a species-centric view, rather than clinging onto the relatively recent, in geological terms, concept of Nation States. After all, the growth and expansion of humanity will ultimately be dependent on space exploration - and at current rates of population growth, climate change (whether manmade or not) and consumption of natural resources ON our planet, those resources OFF our planet should remain available for the benefit of the species as a whole. I'm not arguing against commerce and profit, but these do not necessarily have to come tied to national flags.
Incidentally, the US has no monopoly on the 'dimwits' you referred to - but perhaps the US does seem to demonstrate a more advanced ability than many other nation states to enable the progress of such dimwits to positions of power and authority!
If you were to accept my premise that we need to make space exploration a species-centric activity (which I somehow doubt!), how would you start from where we are today?

Things will fall in place if the right person is elected president? None of the right things are going to get done as long as both houses bend a knee to the Rebooblicans. We need smarter representatives in both houses--and a democratic party majority. The cards are stacked against the republicans, and this hand can't be Trumped!!!

How much money has been WASTED because the Democraps can't accept the loss and keep wanting to bring up the lies about the Russians which they admitted there's no collusion on. They don't want to address issues just bringing up the old lies and as I said WASTING taxpayer money. Just like all the wasted money on Obamacare... website, subsidies, etc! Oh yea, forgot, that includes the global warming waste... this is a natural phenomenon!

Gregory, I do in fact accept your premise of species-centric activity being preferable. The book, and the movie The Martian show one way that this might come about. It's perhaps ironic that the US and China share Qian Xuesen as our greatest rocket scientist, but while he was alive our federal agencies were so well equipped with racist dimwits that keeping Qian here was not a viable option. I don't know that we have progressed very far from that point. Our current presidential election fiasco doesn't offer much comfort. At any rate, someone has to make the moves to colonize. China has announced its intention to do so. We have announced no such intention. Hell, we still exclude the Chinese from NASA conferences as if they were all spies. I'm watching for the hopeful signs of international cooperation with the far east, and they are lacking. Just naval excursions into national waters and other such foolish brinksmanship.

It would be if the world wasn't being sold a Ponzi scheme masquaraded as Global warming similar to the "The NEW ICE AGE is coming! What are we to do?", Ponzi scheme of the early 1980s. Pres. Reagan told them all to go jump in a frozen lake and they melted in time for the new Ponzi scheme. Who could we feed and give all this melted water with all that money being pocketed by the self proclaimed and sanctimonious important few of the scheme of today?
A few years back, the EU tried to collect those absurd carbon credit taxes from the Chinese airlines flying in EU airspace. China told the EU to go get stuffed and the EU caved. The outright Con job being pulled on the Lemmings today does NOT address the feeding and watering of the REAL poor with the technology now available and that costs peanuts comparably vs this corrupt Global B.S. scheme

The solutions has proven to be education and house loans to have people work so hard they can pay the morgage to keep the house, eat and drink themselves close to death while getting bigger houses, more cars, summer houses, boats... this makes producing and raising Babies second fiddle.

@Will51: Agree. There is a prevalent attitude that I would only loosely define as 'thinking' whereby we aren't really supposed to use any resources. We just 'think' about the best way to use them. This is not to say we should not plan but at the same time I believe resources are in place and are meant to be used. That's why we call them resources.

Save the resources for who? Who will live on the Moon if space based economics don't draw them there and without people to use the resource, now or in the future, what does it matter what resources are there? It's not like Earth where there is and will be a population for whom resources must be husbanded out into the infinite future. The Moon is empty of people. The resources, as resources, are of no value at all, now or then, unless there are people to use them.

If the resources of the Moon aren't to be used in the near term, there won't be a long term population on the Moon to worry about later.

If capitalising on lunar resources is the key to kick-starting a more space-based society, then by the time the resources start to run out (and we're talking a long time if the current estimates are even fractionally correct) then we'll be able to bring in water from further out in the solar system. Once you have a thriving space based economic society, it's not a huge deal to start bringing back asteroids full of water if water is what you need. The mission time scales start to elongate and robotic asteroid harvesting missions that are decades long are neither difficult nor will they be uncommon at that stage. It's possible with current technology so in 100-300 years when the lunar water may start to run out, it won't be too difficult to imagine a series of slow trip retrievals of water asteroids from the belt or from the orbits of Jupiter or Saturn.

Water on the moon is not at all like old growth forests on Earth or insects in the Amazon basin. It's an inanimate resource on a totally barren world that can only become less barren if we use the resource.

What nonsense. In the outer solar system water is the most commonest of commodities. What needs to be done now is to use what is available to get out there. In the future water in mass can be brought back to the moon in the manner of comets or other icy objects.

First off, hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe, not water. Oxygen is a little harder to come by. Also, even if all the water on the Moon is easily accessible, we are only going to abuse it while our technology base is still in its infancy. As we progress to ion drives and fusion based propulsion, the need for liquid based fuels will disappear. Water for Human basic needs will not overly stress the Moon's supplies.
But since we are now starting to understand that the Eco-systems of even light density atmosphere's are far more complex than first imagined, it is not unreasonable to test interplanetary equipment while it is less than four days from repair. We need a lot more experience with extraterrestrial equipment before we rely on it exclusively. Six months or more away from a "Gas Station" is too far away with current technology.
Let's work out the bugs, and then go "Gung-Ho" to Mars. I love Eon Musk's idea to go to Mars, but let's go there with confidence and backing. Let's not repeat another "Apollo" disaster, where we run out of backing and momentum before we get anything done.....

I think you missed the point of the article. Water doesn't get "used up" on the moon. It gets used as a storage media. You take sunlight for photovoltaic sells, use that energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel. Know what you get when you burn hydrogen and oxygen?? Right, water. The hydrogen and oxygen become fuel for fuel cells used for human activity, the water produced goes back to the moon, or used to blanket housing and protect from radiation. It gets used as drinking water, which doesn't really transform it - it's still water and with the energy produced, can be cleaned up. Think of water on the moon as a giant battery system. Energy from the sun gets stored in water by converting it to oxygen and hydrogen so that it might become water again. Water used this way is the ultimate "green" use - forever recycling the energy of the sun in a non-polluting way as long as the sun exists.

Well, to be fair, it was stated that water could be used as rocket propellant, and that water would fundamentally be lost forever.

Plus, while water can certainly be reused as you say, one of the major uses in Spudis' plans is to provide water for use (in all of those roles) on interplanetary spacecraft thus also essentially removing that water form the lunar resource base.

I think the concern for the water of the Moon is misplaced. If it is available and as accessible as people think, that is the best way for the human species to make it out into space. A return to the Moon is a much better first step than a direct flight to Mars. In fact, I think the second place we need to concentrate on is not Mars, but Ceres, or possibly the South Pole of Mercury where radar imagery has strongly indicated ice also exists.

Ice is ice. We should use it if it is there on the Moon as people think that it is. We can, in a manner of speaking, bring life to the Moon if we have ice that we can convert to water. That water might be used to build enclosed fish farms or aquariums where species besides the human species can move to new habitats and give their own brand of life to new worlds.

Some speak of a Manifest Destiny in space. I see that as one of the few ideas worthy of being called a Manifest Destiny. We can bring new life to a dead world we call our Moon. We can bring life to the Dwarf Planet Ceres. We can do that by using the water ice located in those places to make the water life needs.

The often un-debated issue about Mar is not what we will do with the water resources we have found there. Rather, burning question about Mars will be what do we do if in fact we find or even reasonably suspect that there is or may have been some form of microbial life below the surface. This is particularly the case below the Polars caps of Mars where we know the water is.

Stay off Mars! Don't mess with the water because Martian microbes might need it. That political issue, which I think has already been carried to great extremes wi9ll rise up and become a forest fire some day.

That is an issue for another day to me. But no one argues that for the Moon although I have heard some hints of that argument for Ceres. That didn't want to crash Dawn on Ceres when it ran out of fuel because of planetary protection protocols

With the development of the water resources of the Moon, we won't have to worry about that thorny issue. That more than anything else is why we should concentrate on the water resources of the Moon. That is a much less challenging task, not scientifically, but politically. And like it or not, in this debate, politics overrides science. ,

The fact that a comment of this type is the first for this article confirms my suspicion that we will probably never go back to the moon or set foot on mars. We lack the will and correct mindset to do so.

I share your concerns, but they are misplaced. If we need the moon's water to survive on Earth, then we are in deep trouble and our mere survival is in question.

Beyond that, the moon is the logical next step in exploration. It's not to close, not too far, and has resources. It's an ideal testbed for technologies and procedures required to go anywhere else. Especially considering the huge challenges that have yet to be resolved for long duration human life support. And no, the ISS has not solved these problems. While the ISS has and is addressing many of these issues, it still relies on a constant resupply from Earth to maintain it's life support.

If there is profit to be made on the moon that also might spur development of appropriate technologies for deep space, then I say go for it. Whoever gets there first can do whatever the heck they want with that resource.

I think we should exploit the moon while we are still able to do so. Conservation is meaningless given the birth rate worldwide. The SpaceX heavy is the game changer that will make moon bases and planetary exploration feasible. There is no reason to choose one or the other. Competition will have to step up to or surpass SpaceX's achievement. Blue origin is already in the game, ULA and the Europeans, Russians, Indians, and Chinese are not going to just sit around and do nothing. I expect they will all have test articles by the end of next year. This is why Elon needs to move as fast as he can to capitalize on his leading industry while he can. Go SpaceX!!!

If the SpaceX $90 million Falcon Heavy is a 'game changer', and we have clear superior deep space capable SpaceX boosters/capsules, then why are we allowing Federal Agency Nasa to blow $60+ billion on the unneeded, unaffordable, unsustainable shameless earmarked pork SLS/Orion?
We need to downsize or eliminate Nasa...
The US space program is too important to be further entrusted to our bloated, pork driven Federal Govt and Federal Agency NASA.

Let's not abandon NASA. Let's run it like Space-X. Tell all the Military Contract AxxHoles that the days of unlimited, unjustified spending--are over!!! We cannot afford the Orion, the F-22 or F-35 the way the industries are organized. Dividing everything up between all the states for the sake of votes--is NOT the way to run an efficient industry! If nothing else--Space-X is proving that! Let's start thinking about the best way to accomplish our goals--not the best way to line our pockets. That will come if we do the other things right.....

Don't blame contractors for big govt Nasa incompetence, stupidity, waste, errors... Govt takes from taxpayers, hands to Nasa..... Nasa makes the choices, specifies the plans, the designs, awards the contracts....
Govt is inherently corrupt, incompetent, greedy, irresponsible... Nasa is Govt. Face it.. big govt Nasa is not going to get 'fixed'... not going to get 'better'.. I mean it's been 44 years of continious pork, waste, dead end boondoggles like STS, ISS, Constellation, SLS/Orion.
Give up on Nasa... We should downsize/eliminate Nasa, and instead route the money to x-prizes rewarding private enterprises for accomplishing US space goals like Lunar Colonies, Americans on Mars, trips to asteroids.

A decade of experience manning and operating a Lunar Base will do wonders to an eventual (but far in the future) human exploration of Mars. The same cannot be said of the so-called asteroid mission. Since other space farers are interested, if US takes the lead in an "International Lunar Base," it can probably be done by the end of the next decade. Falcon Heavy is ideally suited to missions to the lunar base. If Elon realizes that his Mars dream is an order of magnitude harder than the Lunar Base and acts accordingly, he might turn out to be the needed catalyst. It is one thing to land his Dragon capsule on Mars as he plans to do in 2018, but another to actually and routinely land and retrieve humans from Mars. Hope he reads Aviation Week!

Nasa's SLS/Orion is a needless, unaffordable, unsustainable, shameless earmarked pork 'rocket to nowhere'... costing nearly $2 billion per launch.. over 20 times what a Falcon Heavy costs...
Big Govt Federal Agency Nasa has blown $500 billion on US manned space in the 44 years since Apollo ended without getting a single American beyond low earth orbit, leaving itself incompetent/incapable of crewing or even resupplying our own space station.
The US space program is too important to be further entrusted to our bloated, pork driven Federal Govt and Nasa... American private enterprise, innovative, efficient, spirited must take the lead, and we must quit wasting money flushed down the Nasa toilet.

JareelSkaj.... you say my numbers are 'way off',yet fail to specify which numbers, or supply any other values...
Nasa did 'blow' $20 billion on it's miserably failed/cancelled Constellation... while innovative, efficient, spirited SpaceX was producing vastly superior/efficient deep space capable boosters and capsules for only $300 million...
And Nasa is wasting $60+ billion more on the 'rocket to nowhere' earmarked pork SLS/Orion when SpaceX has far superior boosters/capsules already proven... there are no funded or even proposed SLS missions.. it is pure pork... which will fly only once per year, with a standing army of infrastructure, if SLS ever flies at all.

The problems with the SLS are too numerous to count. But they all come back to the basic point that it has been, and always will be badly underfunded. Current scheduling, which of course will slip, has first flight close to four years after the first FH. And even then NASA won't be able to afford more than a single flight per year. FH is scheduled for four launches over the next eighteen months. So as I've been saying for a long time now on this site, once FH is launching regularly, Congress is going to ask why they are funding this additional mega-billion dollar launcher for NASA. I doubt SLS will have more than one to two launches before it is mothballed.

Ameriman
A private enterprise will always be more nimble and cost efficient than a government program. Remember, NASA doesn't build anything themselves. They contract out everything. Who gets those contracts? What are the terms under which the contracts are awarded? What are the terms and conditions for delivery and acceptance? What Federal and State regulations come into play and must be met for the contracts? These are all things that a private enterprise doesn't have to deal with, and why the government route will always be more expensive - especially when you have Congress involved. They approve and provision NASA's budgets, and in doing so they can, and always do, put stipulations into the funding to favor a bevy of special and political interests.

Is it starting to become clear why a system like SLS/Orion will always be exponentially more expensive than a private one like SpaceX?

And this is not a modern phenomenon, the old adage during the Apollo program was "You can waste anything, except for time".

A private enterprise will always be more nimble and cost efficient than a government program.
==== ==
Agree, Govt, bloated, pork driven, greedy, irresponsible, is 10 times or more inefficient, wasteful than private enterprise...
So, why are we flushing more taxpayer money down the Nasa toilet, when we could instead route the money to x-prizes rewarding private enterprises for accomplishing US space goals like Lunar Colonies, Americans on Mars, trips to asteroids?
Just look objectively at Nasa's manned space $500 billion and 44 years since Apollo, and tell me we should continue to fund Nasa.

I agree completely with you, I have sadly watched for all those 44 years, and longer, while the politicians and the bureaucrats have wasted all of those years and they will waste another 44 years if given the chance ( so they can get elected or re elected ) and the only real hope is privatization of space exploration and development by companies like Spacex and Blue Origin for starters. Forget about Lockheed and Boeing they are addicted to living off of the government.

Elon is very passionate about his dreams and has the will power and resources to accomplish what he sets out to do. If he realizes that a Lunar Base is the necessary first step in human exploration of Mars within his lifetime, he may actually go for it. Operating a fully-manned Lunar Base for say 5 years using his re-usable Falcon 9 Heavy will teach us a lot about how to do the Mars right. In space endeavors, a catastrophic event can delay immensely or even terminate an entire program, especially if expensive and hard to do. That must not be allowed to happen in our quest to go to Mars. The Moon is nearby and mitigative/rescue options are far more viable since it is possible to get there in 3 days and not 180!

The presence of water in the craters near the poles is a real game changer. The US public lost interest in the Apollo program, because videos of the barren moonscape conveyed the impression that it was all ultimately not of much use to mankind. No water, no life, no nothing! Water changes everything. The Lunar Village near the poles will be our new International Space Station, but more self-sustaining to some extent, if we could harvest water for oxygen needed for breathing, growing plants for food, and eventually rocket fuel. Remember we have to ferry EVERYTHING our astronauts need to ISS and the DeltaV needed is quite high, over 9 km/s.

What people don't realize is that the DeltaV needed to get out of the deep gravitational well of Earth is the major portion of any space mission, including interplanetary ones. The deep well is why we need powerful rockets like Falcon 9 Heavy and SLS. But it requires far less DeltaV to go to Mars from the Lunar Base. It could be much quicker too if a higher DeltaV is used. An Earth-based mission to Mars must escape Earth, carry all the rocket fuel, and consumables for a long trip and all that has to be launched from the deep gravity well of Earth. On the other hand, we only need the basic vehicle and can supply the fuel and even some food from the lunar Village. If we can get there faster with a higher DeltaV ... ...

A Lunar Village as a jump-off point for a mission to Mars! That will keep the entire world riveted to TV screens and revive world-wide interest in human exploration of Mars, not to belittle the Lunar Village itself. What new technologies would a Lunar Village spawn? What new generation of inspired young people would it create? Possibilities are endless, now that we know there is life-giving and sustaining water on the "barren" Moon.

Elon, just imagine an "Elon Musk Lunar Village" within the next decade or so, well within your lifetime, instead of the "pie in the sky" Mars "colonization," which may never happen in your lifetime. Go for it.

kantha
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy at $50-90 million per launch is necessary as it can lift heavy vessel modules and fuel to earth orbit efficiently, at perhaps $500 per lb to LEO, where they can be mated to form Mars vehicle stacks...

The low price per lb to LEO is crucial, as Mars vehicles and fuel exceed the capacity of whatever booster is used, so on-orbit module connection and fueling is essential...
Why isn't Nasa leveraging SpaceX boosters and capsules?

The most important variable the Moon changes is cost. The new SpaceX price sheet drops launch costs to between 750$ and 3000$ per pound (to LEO or Mars respectively). Frequent launches to the Moon will bring this down even more. A base on the Lunar surface would be cheaper than the ISS, because you can build it with materials already there (thus paying a launch cost of 0$ per pound). Give commerce a reason to be there (hotels, manufacturing, etc), and suddenly the steps to Mars become clear and near.

While I agree in principal with the P.D. Spudis book and this article on the merit of establishing moon base (s) before going to Mars I really disagree that moon ice should be used to power engines for deep-space exploration.

While Spudis is right on regarding the usefulness of water turning it into fuel, except for lifting payloads off the moons' surface in orbit) is a waste of a limited resource.(as does ibuildstuff).

Its best use is to sustain life at bases for drinking, growing food, radiation protection, and generating electricity as an auxiliary to space nuclear and/or solar power.

While this article and the book indicates there are millions of tons of ice water without actual measurements these are just estimates.

Using chemical rockets, other than landing and launching from the moons surface) for deep-space exploration is a waste since its lost forever. The future for deep space propulsion is new tech like VASIMR-like engines and space nuclear power. Manned flight to Mars and beyond is not sustainable without that tech.

The best area/place to test and apply that tech is the Earth/Moon area.

And there is great potential to explore the moon and locate other resources to use in space.

Vasimr or other SEP types of propulsion still require a reaction mass. I agree that the precious water on the moon should not be used as propellant. The somewhat involved answer is that when smelters are built on the Moon to use the titanium, iron, and aluminum which is abundant there, as a side effect, they will produce lots of Oxygen. On Earth, we just let it fly off into the air. In space, it too will be precious, but given the amount of ore processed, much more abundant than the water.

You are exactly correct that we need to build our tech base on the Moon before we go to Mars. Counter-intuitively, it will reduce the time required to build a civilization on Mars by decades.

The VASIMR uses Argon or Xenon and both are present in the regolith of the Moon.

Another reason for a series of moon bases to mine lunar resources and construct the vessels for exploration to Mars and beyond in the Solar System.

The mining of near-Earth asteroids would provide another source for valuable resources, without gravity-well issues, while simultaneously reducing the long-term risk of a catastrophic meteorite impact to Earth.

What is really needed is the development is a space-nuclear reactor (SNR) capable of being used on a space-craft and as a surface-based power source. There are several small modular reactors (SMRs) designs that have been developed that could form the basis for a SNR.

Sending mine equipment to the moon costs $100,000/pouns then water is required for processing the ore shipping costs also 6 figures. Then the copper concentrate shall be sent by rocket to eath at $ 100,000/pound for rocket transportaton alone and sell it on the market at $ 3/pound. Oh I almost forgot that you also mentioned asteroids, what is you plant to snag them, perhaps fishing nets like those use by fishermen back here. GREAT ECONOMICS, how old are you..

Developing extended stay capability is much cheaper and easier by going to the Moon first. It's easier to make mistakes near the moon and learn from that to better prepare us for going to Mars. The problem, other than looking for evidence of previous or existing (bacterial probably) life, is the only need to go there now.
What we should do is to develop Lunar technology and mining to build equipment to send to Europa to mine water Ice and then lob it down to Mars. Re-hydrating Mars will warm the planet, re-create the atmosphere and bring the planet back to life where we can begin to grow crops to feed the Billions on earth, An atmosphere will enable colonists to survive. Good news is water on the moon and Europa can support miners and create fuel for the rockets needed, lowering the lift costs from Earths gravity well.

The water is already there. Most of the Mars Ocean in the north is now ice. See the CBS article "Buried glaciers on Mars still have lots of water". Learning how to mine the ice seems to be our biggest hurdle at this point.

The Moon should be a "No Brain-er", why? Four days to the Moon--6 Months to Mars! So travel, resupply and emergency procedures are all reduced dramatically--time wise. You could still use the same supersonic breaking for a moon landing, but you would have to accelerate the crap out of Earth orbit! It would probably mean getting to the Moon in a day or two instead of four, and you could watch the process on LIVE TV!!!!

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